Sales slipped but prices rose in July as a short supply of homes for sale put pressure on Wisconsin's housing market, a report released Monday shows.
The Wisconsin Realtors Association reported 8,178 closings on existing homes in July, down 5% from 8,608 in July 2016.
But as sales shrank, the median price of houses sold last month jumped 5.9% compared with July a year ago, to $180,000 from $170,000. That was the highest July price recorded since the state Realtors group fine-tuned its data collection methodology in 2005.
The dearth of homes on the market in the state is part of a nationwide shortage of homes for sale, particularly in metro areas.
"Low unemployment rates and relatively low mortgage rates continue to fuel the demand side of the housing market, but inventory constraints have kept our sales down," Erik Sjowall, chairman of the state Realtors board, said in a statement.
The Realtors organization noted that on a seasonally adjusted basis, the state unemployment rate stood at 3.2% in July, down a full percentage point from July 2016. In addition, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was below 4%.
Sjowall said Realtors would be selling a lot more homes if inventories were growing, but instead they are decreasing. Inventories of homes on the market in the state were 13.8% lower than July of last year, and 45% below July 2011, when they peaked at nearly 72,000 homes available for sale, the Realtors said.
Michael Theo, president and chief executive of the Wisconsin Realtors Association, said in the group's monthly report that the tight supply of houses is driving up prices. He said he expects affordability to erode over the next six to 12 months.
"Remarkably, our housing continues to be affordable, but it's been slipping," Theo said.
Through the first seven months of 2017, sales in the state were down 0.1% while the median price was up 6.1%.
The biggest percentage price bump occurred in southeast Wisconsin, with the median price increasing 9.1%, to $195,000 from $178,700 in July a year earlier.
